The battery on my 1990 Buick Riviera is charged. And I started charging the one on my 1987 Chevrolet (Chevy) G20 Sportvan. Both have been sitting for a while.
The Rivi might prove to be something of a wild goose chase? It only has a 4in lift and I was getting a new GPS track for the east side of the Archers Fork Loop in the Marietta Unit of The Wayne (National Forest). I was on foot, but I needed some place to lock my bicycle up to. I did that on the north side of the loop on Irish Run Rd/ Township Rd 58. But the road was much rougher than I remembered and the Rivi bottomed out hard a couple of times. And the road was so narrow that there wasn't anywhere to turn around (often times, I can do it on the road itself).
I got the bike to the site and locked up on on the side of the road, then got back in the Rivi and drove it to the south side of the south side of the loop and parked on federal property on Wards Rd (Bell Cemetery Rd) on the south side. From there, I hiked the east side of the loop, got on the bike and rode back to the car. When I got in, I started up the Rivi and drove off.
About 10 miles later, the car stalled and wouldn't turn back on. I was out of cell signal, but luckily somebody was outside right where I broke down. I used their telephone, called AAA and got it towed home. Now, I think I'm going to have to do diagnostics on everything I can possibly think of? And pretty much, it would probably all entail things that I've never done before. I think I have to jack up the back end and see if there's a box near the gas tank? What if it was crushed?
The Rivi's digital odometer has a short. Sometimes it comes on and... much of the time, it doesn't. I think that one of the first things I'm going to do is hunt down that ground? And I'm probably going to replace the bolts in the positive and grounding tee's? But my van has what you might call a fusible link? There's a ton of wires grounded to the lower side of the 305/ 5.0L engine behind the right exhaust manifold. I see myself checking every one of it's numerous relays with a volt, or ohm meter. I remember with my 1989 Chevy Beretta GTU that I had a bad one and it was located underneath the passenger's side door trim. My public library at the time had access to an automotive database that put me on the right path to those.
With the van, I botched the replacement of the right lower ball joint. And I think the new left upper ball joint isn't greasing like it should? I've never done these before and I used sheer "mechanical aptitude" to do this job (I didn't consult the repair manual). But I took a Sawzall with a Diablo metal cutting blade to sever the ball joint studs, then I just disconnected the tie rod ends and removed the steering knuckle. I said to hell with grinding and chiseling off the stock rivets on the upper ball joints in the wheel wells and just removed the upper control arms and did that with it on a vice. But the installation of the new ball joints is very picky about proper procedure and I already botched two of them.
In my G20 van, I realized that I can pop the ball joints with the tie rods dismounted if I used a 1.5 ton scissor jack. There's just enough space to use it upside down. I cranked it with the stock bar and those things just popped right out. I'm going to wait on doing anything more on the van until at least a couple days from now. In the meantime, I'll begin what is likely to be a "wild goose chase" on the Rivi.
